In my quest about blogs and thinking about how to make my blog of value, I kept searching for ”meaning” (in blogs).
It is fascinating.
On one side, blogs and bloggers have come a long way and HAVE become a marketing and PR power for themselves and for companies they blog for. On the other side, majority of population in the US and the world is still so far from relating to what blogs are and how they can benefit from blogs or why they may want to start writing their own blogs.
Blogging is becoming a science in itself. Simple Google search on ‘why blog‘ will give you zillions of opinions on ‘why blog’, ‘how to and how not to (blog)’, ‘what works and does not’.
Having read 40-50 posts like that, and, oh well, having been intimidated by how far all advanced bloggers have gone, all I arrived at is one still has to find his own style by walking the road and testing what works and doesn’t. Intimidation is off, and am proceeding with making my blog of value. “Winning through intimidation” is the book that makes wonders when you find yourself in the sphere of those who have sharpened their pens and mastered/tested their ideas for years.
At the end of the day what makes it — Content is king, and one has got to blog for and with readers, not to and at them.
To capture a few points about blogging and posts that registered in my memory out of all:
1) David Sifry, the founder and CEO of Technorati, analyzed the state of blogosphere on his blog (bullet points are quoted from David’s 05/01/06 posting):
- Technorati now tracks over 37.3 Million blogs
- The blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months
- It is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago
- On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day
- 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still posting 3 months after their blogs are created
- Technorati tracks about 1.2 Million new blog posts each day, about 50,000 per hour.
About 1/3 of that is written in English, 1/3 – in Japanese, and about 1/6 – in Chinese.
I read this as to become successful (in my definition – fairly readable) in blogging, one must somehow differentiate her blog among other 11 million ‘English speaking’ blogs. To ease that up a bit, take into account 55% of follow-ups and then apply the 80-20 rule twice, a new blogger competes with about 200,000 top bloggers along with all else on the net. Why 80-20 rule twice? Because it is really the top of the top that makes a difference. Apply it three times and you would be even closer to the top. Yes, sure, my finance mind keeps seeing math where it may not apply. The fact is still the fact: to bring oneself to the top, one has more work to do than if he/she’d started three years ago and kept at it.
2) Seth Godin in his Incomplete Guide on Blogs points out that there are essentially three types of blogs:
- Cat blog - a blog by and about oneself, one’s cat and, other life events.
Cat type blogger can (and should) be happy with low traffic to his blog.
Why should? Because to be unhappy about the fact the world is not interested in your life stories is to be oblivious. People first want to be heard before they want to hear. If you think you hear them by making them aware of how you/your cat felt today, think some more… Be happy because you have already reached your audience — your remote relatives and friends are now aware of what’s going in your life, and that is already a step forward in your communication with them.
- Boss Blog — Blogs by bosses to make the public aware of strategic developments and tactical moves at their companies. Usually bosses can not reveal any news until it is not news any more, and as such, while might be educational for some, these blogs often lack zest important for majority to come back
- Viral Blogs – Blogs aiming start conversations, to bring points up, to spread ideas.
Viral blogs are the blogs that readers keep coming back to and keep spreading the word about. These are the blogs that are shaking traditional media, traditional (interruption) marketing, and traditional all.
3) I learned a lot about first steps and next steps in blogging from Guy Kawasaki’s blog.
4) A few more links that I found helpful in understanding what blogs are:
Blog’s view and Updated Manifesto
5) Blogs I found of interest are in my blog roll.
